Various types of printers are known as printing apparatuses for printing on various kinds of media to be printed such as paper, cloth, and film. These printers widely adopt the cartridge style in which ink is contained in an ink container and is made attachable/detachable.
For such cartridge-style printers, a method of providing a memory on the cartridge in order to monitor, for example, the amount of ink remaining in the cartridge is known. Further, information is appropriately written into or read out from this memory.
However, when writing into or reading out from the memory provided on the cartridge, if a contact-type connector has to be used, the durability of the contact section becomes a problem.
(1) In view of the above, in the present invention, an antenna is used to carry out wireless communication with an element (for example, a storage unit having a memory) provided on the ink container (for example, a cartridge). The first invention has an object of providing a printing apparatus which effectively utilizes this antenna.
(2) Further, when communication is to be carried out wirelessly, it is preferable to be able to communicate with a weak radio wave. The second invention has an object of providing a power-conserving printer by establishing a state in which communication is possible even with a weak radio wave.